


Lest We Forget

by PassingInTheNight



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Fix-it fic, M/M, ain't nothing about that last scene that doesn't stink, post-series finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:36:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23540941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PassingInTheNight/pseuds/PassingInTheNight
Summary: Steve leaves Danny, he flies off with Catherine, he runs as far as he can, and it all still works out in the end. As it always would.
Relationships: Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 82
Kudos: 211





	1. Ke hoʻomanaʻo nei au iā ʻoe

They part ways about three weeks into the trip.

One morning, Steve had woken up in a hotel somewhere, oh somewhere in the world, looked at the woman next to him, and knew he was doing this wrong.

Tracing the lines of her sleeping face with his eyes, all he found was the grand love story he’d created in his head, of two people who’d known each other forever and were drawn back together over and over because they were meant to be. They were comfortable with one another and the history they shared was a long and winding one. And through all her absences over the past decade, Steve could only seem to remember the reappearances.

The plane took off and he didn’t look out the window. This was a life he was okay living. It had been and would be all he could ask for because he’s tried to ignore certain doors for so long now, he probably could never even find the handle.

Blue eyes in the dark.

The flight touched down and Steve McGarrett was a tourist extraordinaire from the words “the local time is”.

He and Catherine knew how this worked, they’ve always known how to have a good time. And if he had been looking for peace, then it must come when he’s asleep because nothing about their particular brand of party has ever been peaceful.

It didn’t quite matter, though, because Steve had the art of not thinking too deeply about anything down pretty well from the moment Catherine suddenly turned up on his getaway plane with flight information she’d gotten from Lincoln.

But he smiled and they visited wonderful places in a relatively random series of countries, some of which he’d only ever been to after being dropped into them under the cover of night.

Steve had found detachment in the form he’d much sought. He was traveling the world to spend time outside constant combat, where no one would call him at all hours of the day to come deal with the latest tragedy; thinking wasn’t necessary. He especially didn’t need to think about Hawaii.

And that made sense, right? Those islands were where so many of his sadnesses began. His mother died, for the first time. He was shipped off from his dad and home. His father was killed. He spent a decade there chasing murderers, thieves, gangsters, and a general assortment of morally corrupt assholes that broke his heart a little every time he saw the horrific impact they mindlessly inflicted on the world around them. He and his friends were shot and blown-up and beaten over and over. He was left to inherit the seemingly endless sins of his parents, and after a decade of chasing the truth, when it all ended, Steve felt as though he could about wrap it up with a shrug. The fight had left him. He was done. The war had just continued on the island, how could he be expected to find peace there?

So he didn’t think much about Hawaii, didn’t even want to really. He had things to distract him anyway. One being, Catherine was his girl. That always seemed to Steve like a sweet phrase to use, easy too. Lying by her at night, half way around the world, his mind was silent in his sleep, nightmares apparently gone. This was where he should be.

They have that inevitable connection, the kind where people looked at them and were comfortable with their understanding of the relationship they saw. So, Steve was just as comfortable, and if he thought about when he eventually returned to Hawaii and Catherine only appeared in his plans when he realized she was missing, that was a problem for the future.

But then Catherine started talking like she had no mind to ever go back to the Oahu and he thought, well it isn’t that big of a deal because he didn’t want to go back right then anyway.

But then Catherine mentioned how some kid they saw reminded her of one of her students in Afghanistan and Steve would think of all that time she decided to not return to him.

But then Catherine would joke about some case they’d worked on with the team and he was reminded that however long after that, she’d told her version of the truth and left again.

But then Catherine, but then Catherine... and Steve looked at himself in the mental mirror and thought he was just looking for something to be wrong. She always came back, didn’t she? That was proof enough that this was enough. They were meant for each other. She was beautiful and smart and funny and she understood the military lifestyle and what more could Steve ask for? What more could _he_ ask for?

Never blond hair and a smile that he still found hard to look away from.

After the initial buzz of leaving, there were quiet afternoons that he realized he was missing his friends, missing Danny. So every once and a while he’d text his partner, maybe send a picture of something interesting they'd visited.

He never called him, though. It seemed unnecessary and needy. It felt important that he could be independent enough to not desperately want to check in with the people back on Oahu. He was taking the time he said he would and doing what was right for himself.

Steve was with someone he loved, traveling without hesitation, and the weight on his shoulders seemed to have disappeared, especially when he didn’t think about who took the burden if Atlas dropped the sky. All was good in the world of Steve McGarrett.

Then, one day he and Catherine are walking down the cobblestone streets of yet another European city when he feels his phone buzz with a text. A text from Gracie.

“ _Hey, Uncle Steve. Sorry to bug you, but do you remember where those workout bands are in your house? Danno doesn’t have any at his place and since he got back from the hospital for the infection, he’s been struggling with mobility and stuff because of the pain, so I wanted to find something to help. Thanks_ ”

Oh.

Steve doesn’t falter a single step, doesn’t blink, and he especially doesn’t think as he types out a quick reply about the bands being in the upstairs cupboard by the bathroom. It doesn’t occur to him to go on with his day any different than he would have before... but there’s a dam stopping up the river flow.

They walk a couple more blocks and then overcast clouds, before only touting rain, now sit heavy in the skies despite having been there all day, washing out the scenery around them.

And if he were to squint, Steve’s pretty sure it could look like he is in any random city in the Western Hemisphere, so what is the point of being here specifically? The long list of tourist attractions they are meant to see during the day feels unnecessary, but the compulsion to visit what he came for pushes him on.

_Why hadn’t Danny told him he had to go back to the hospital?_

When Catherine suggests they stop for lunch, Steve walks past a dozen restaurants and not one seems interesting enough to use the energy to go inside. They could just get takeout and eat it back at the hotel, have some quiet. In the end, though, she walks into a café with a huff and the decision’s been made.

_Why isn’t he in the house anymore?_

The afternoon takes them on a winding path through the city and despite the earlier trepidation, Steve enjoys seeing the things they put on postcards and returns Catherine’s easy smiles.

Yet, when they sit down to rest on the benches near those destinations, Steve feels the desire to just stay there the rest of the day snake its way around his legs. Why should he tire himself out walking around this city if nothing looks as bright and colorful as it does on those postcards?

_Was his pain really that bad?_

However, relative to his time, Steve is no longer a young man, so maybe this is just the travel fatigue catching up to him. And every time he turns to Catherine to see if the desire to stop for the day is reflected in her eyes, all he gets back is a comment about how they should get going, so he’s back on his feet convincing himself it’s just the weather that’s got him under. A sunny day tomorrow and he’ll be fine.

_Is it only Grace that’s helping him? Should she have to?_

After dinner, and night has fallen, Steve couldn’t have worked up the energy or patience to even sit down anywhere that wasn’t in the hotel room.

He seems to be discouragingly aware of the creak in his bones and the grating of any voice except the one he's gone three weeks without hearing. Catherine somehow keeps up the witty, witty banter with his limited input, though, and takes no outward notice of Steve’s turn in mood other than the few frowns that pass over her face.

All the while he feels a general, but minor, ache throughout his body. Not one way he lays on the bed is as comfortable as he knows it could be and it seems like the hours to get to a non-senile bedtime are endlessly long.

The screen on the wall, now black after Catherine has turned off the meaningless TV movie they finished, reflects Steve almost immediately sliding down to lay fully on his pillow and silently turn toward the window. The ache persists and it is all he can do to stop himself from tossing and turning.

As the exhaustion of the day beats out Steve’s itch to get up and run until he passes out, he feels the valley in his mind start to rumble, the dam wall had been looking a little weak recently. He is lying in a bed a thousand miles from nowhere and just as he begins to slip under, his mind lets him in on the secret.

_Hawaii is where so many of his sadnesses began, but it is also where they ended. His friends and family have been there every time to help him back from the edge of his will to go on. One of them more than the others. The one who caught the sky when Atlas dropped it. The one._

Guilt rattles around his head and gives him the clarifying thoughts that, as the river retakes the valley and floods everything in sight, would have pushed him to jump out of bed had he not already been in the swirling truths and lies between consciousness and unconsciousness.

_He’d prayed to God, and then left his granted prayer alone on the beach with a plea in the air. Steve had hopped on a plane because all of a sudden he thought taking care of himself didn’t mean being around Danny._

_He thought his nightmares were magically gone with no remnants, but he knows he still wakes up in the morning with heart sprinting and nervous dread that lasts until breakfast._

_He thought when Catherine suggested ‘somewhere more exciting’ for the next location, it wasn’t worrisome when she’d panned on the map to countries with serious travel advisories._

_He thought this was where life would settle for him, but he’d left that life where he built it._

He thought, and then he didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter Lenkov is a hoe ass motherfucker and I'm not too pleased with him right now....this be my contribution to the reckoning. I've gone back and forth on this, but at a certain point I just want to set it free. Also, I know, I know, I know that my verb tenses get messed up (despite my ardent editing, I'm just a dummy in a death roll with the English language), but maybe you didn't even notice. I tried not to rush his realization thing, but also I paced what I could and the rest is left to God. Just kind of hit me that I'm really sick of getting this upset over the boring writing of some holier-than-thou tv writer that decides to butcher my love affairs.


	2. Mau loa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration for this chapter was the song "Call If You Need Me" by Vance Joy. And by "inspiration", I don't mean that I read the lyrics and it gave me an idea for what to write, although the lyrics are pretty topical. I mean that often when I write, I find a song that just works for whatever reason and then I basically write to the tempo of the song or at least have it on in the background.

If Steve had stayed, Danny wouldn’t have said a word. It was decided long ago they didn’t need to talk about it. What the exact day was, he couldn’t say because it didn’t exist. It was 50 years alone in a look that lasted 3 seconds and all he could ever think was that he never planned to be here this long, but couldn’t leave now.

But Steve had left. And then he’d left with Catherine and if this was how Steve found peace, then Danny would have to make his own with whatever it was...whatever it was they never really talked about.

Danny spends the first week after his partner’s departure in pain and generally avoiding looking at the source of it. The people around him always seem to rebound from being shot and beaten at a ridiculous speed and maybe when he was younger he could play along with that, but now his body tells him to do his PT exercises, take a very short four hour nap, and wake up exhausted.

Junior and him have found a quiet balance that mostly involves occasional conversation in the morning before Junior leaves for work and then occasional conversation if they both happen to eat dinner at the house. The kid knows this wasn’t how any of it should have happened and he wants to be there for Danny, but if he seems to give a wary look at Steve’s bedroom door when he walks past and spends more time at Tani’s place than his own, Danny wouldn’t judge him for a moment.

Eddie tracks Danny around the house in a way that makes Danny smile and go to sit by him in comfortable silence on the couch for a while each day.

It was on this couch then that Danny gets his first text back from Steve towards the end of the first week and on that couch where he realizes Catherine had joined Steve on his trip. It is then also that couch where the mental struggle to not to call Steve everyday abruptly ends as petty spite settles in Danny’s chest.

Suddenly he feels like the charity case friend that is being allowed to stay at someone’s house out of pity and jumps up off the couch as fast as the tightness in his wounds will allow. He cannot be here if Steve ever walks back through the front door with Catherine a step behind.

Steve, as Danny knows him now, could be in the same room as him until the day Danny dies, and he would miss him until that day. But take away that unbreachable distance, and as complicated or uncomplicated as you describe their relationship, Danny loves his best friend and knows Steve will always be one of his people, no matter where they are.

However, although Danny wishes he could just hope his friend is having a good time and not feel as though he’s owed something, the pain in his chest is only a manageable hum when the line in the sand isn’t going to be washed away by high tide. And the tide’s been coming in for years now.

So the next morning, Danny stops Junior at the door and explains that his house is ready enough now and he’s going to pack up today and head out. When Junior’s face falls a bit, Danny quickly adds that he’ll be over here all the time still, but he can’t have a resting place where there is no rest. And Junior understands, he really does.

They don’t hug. The last time someone hugged them here, they might not have been coming back.

Once Junior leaves for the day, Danny gathers up the things he’d migrated into this house on the beach, the amount of which had grown well beyond the initial couple bags he’d carried through the door, and throws them in the rental car. He’s not rushed. He’s not angrily vacating just to prove a point. He has shuffled around this house for a week, leaving room for a person that isn’t there and looking out the window every time he hears a truck go by on the street, though the truck he’s looking for still sits on the property. The least he could do for himself is be in his own house when he looks out to the road for a flash of red.

Eddie is confusedly jittering around the living room when Danny walks back in, so he kneels before the dog and pulls him close to scratch under his collar.

“I’ve got to go back to my place, Eddie.”

The dog pulls his head up to look towards Danny’s face and Danny feels encouragement from the attention.

“I’ll come over and see you as much as I can, but it’s time for me to be on my way. Next time we go for a w-a-l-k, I’ll explain the ins and outs of human drama and personal vindictiveness.”

With no visible disagreement from Eddie, Danny nods and kisses the sweet boy on the top of his head.

Danny pulls himself up and as he realizes he's really going to be leaving now, he’s shocked to find he hadn’t much expected to ever move out of this house, which doesn’t track at all because he had never really moved in and of course this was always temporary. Suppose it's no matter now.

As a final check, Danny looks around for anything he may be leaving behind.

When all he can see is Steve just existing in the thousand little moments, all those times no one else ever saw, during the decade this had been a haven in the jungle for Danny, he closes his eyes for a beat, opens them only once he’s facing the door, and walks out of it.

They had all come to visit him at some point since Steve had left, so Danny sends a message to the team letting them know he will be back at his place now, if Junior hasn’t already mentioned it.

When he goes to send a similar message to Steve, he hesitates. It might trouble Steve, feel like Danny is trying to guilt him with drastic action, and at the end of it all, Danny really does wish happiness for his partner. So he leaves it and only perfunctorily answers the original text from the day before, once he’s sitting on the couch in his own house.

* * *

When Grace flies back to Oahu from school five days later and her mom drops her off at Danno’s house, she’s as surprised as anyone would be when her dad opens the door with a face initially drawn in too much pain for coming up on 3 weeks post-surgery and the weakness of fever running through him. She pauses the big hug she was about to throw around him now that she was finally here. He had convinced her to wait until spring break to come back after he was shot. But she wasn’t going to hide her concern now. Danny wipes the pain from his face and springs into a grin while pulling his daughter into a hug.

“Hey, Monkey!”

“What’s wrong?”

“What’d’ya mean?”

“You made a face. What is it?”

“Not necessarily feeling great.”

“Mmmm, yeah I can see that part.”

With a grimace, Danny walks back to the couch and settles himself down while Grace closes the door behind her and walks after him.

“Danno, what’s wrong?”

“Well....might have an issue with my bullet wound.”

“Beyond the fact that it’s there?”

“Yeah, see that‘s funny...I’m laughing. But uh, no. Was struggling yesterday, but I didn’t see what was wrong until this morning.”

At that Danny pulls aside his shirt to show inflamed red and other nauseating colors surrounding the scar on his chest. Grace pulls a face at the sight and stands to go look for the car keys.

“We end up at the hospital a lot, don’t we? I know your job is dangerous, but I think you might be right about Uncle Steve and the danger magnet thing.”

“What do you mean “hospital”?

“I mean, you’re of course going to have that checked out”.

When he doesn’t even throw in a moment for a “manly” hesitation for help before agreeing, Grace immediately pulls out her phone to call her mom and tell her she’s going to drive Danno to the hospital, and grabs the keys for the car while ushering her dad to get ready to go.

The ER doctors get to work with antibiotics and fluids as quick as they can after seeing the infection radiating from the hospital’s recent stitch work. Neither Grace nor Danny take the time to actually absorb the doctor’s explanation of why this specific infection may have happened and what they’re doing to help, but Danny had known this was a possibility, so he takes the news with the unimpressed frown that has become his reaction to issues large and small in the past couple weeks.

Later, when Rachel is on her way with Charlie to visit, the doctors have left Danny and Grace alone in a little curtained area in the hospital, and Grace reaches for her phone to call the usual person whenever something happens with her dad. And then she catches herself. Uncle Steve isn’t even in Hawaii, might not be for a long time. And Grace knows she’s angry at him for it.

Danno can take care of himself and Uncle Steve is doing what he thinks is best for his own well-being, which is understandable, but the surprise Grace had experienced on first learning her dad’s best friend had left, hadn’t yet receded. Yet she certainly wasn’t going to ask Danno about the situation.

Her dad had fought his way out of a death sentence, done so before and could again. The meek and mild don’t have his name on their list. And he’s no longer some helpless visitor on the mountains in the sea. He knows this island, has made a home here.

But Grace knows who helped him set the foundation of that home. The one who made sure it was always protected.

At some point during the day, Danny is moved to an actual hospital room. The doctor gives updates with eyebrows raised in surprise at the aggressive nature of a seemingly routine post-op infection and floats the idea that Danny stay overnight for observation. When Danny simply nods with a “why not?” shrug, the doctor frowns, gives a furtive look to Grace, and makes his exit.

During their downtime following Charlie and Rachel's visit, Danny and Grace talk quietly about her time at college, what he’s been up to before all this, how big Charlie has gotten in the few months she’s been gone; just filling in the gaps of what they hadn’t said during phone calls.

Danny lays in his hospital bed, a small smile on his face as he listens to Gracie describe how she’s dealing with life out on her own, how she’s having a great time on the mainland. And then the smile stays there when he tells her how Charlie is having a better time in school, how he asked about learning to play the guitar last week, how he’s growing up to be a great kid.

Soon after, however, the fever decides to punch up and Danny goes quiet as the exhaustion of his world settles heavy on his shoulders. He’s eventually sleeping while Grace sits by him and is pained to watch his face twitch in discomfort, mumbling occasionally.

When time nears the end of visiting hours, Grace begrudgingly gets ready to leave before a nurse has to tell her to. As a silent goodbye, Grace grabs her dad’s hand with a tight squeeze and lets go after a beat. However, walking towards the door, Grace hears a muffled response from the man with his eyes still closed.

“You leavin’ again?”

“I’ll be back tomorrow, Danno. I promise.”

At that voice, Danny’s eyes blearily open just a little in confusion and then struggle to stay open.

“Oh...Gracie. Right. Thank for staying with me, Monkey.”

“No problem. Go back to sleep.”

A mumbled “Ok” comes up from the bed, so Grace turns back to the door only for her dad to continue talking, still half-asleep and quickly falling back under.

“Did you know I wanted to retire a while back? He didn’t want me to. Wanted to do something together.”

A pause and Grace is afraid to hear what’s next. For good or bad, her dad doesn’t really talk to her about his life like this and must just be speaking aloud his thoughts more than actually saying them to her.

“But I was tired then....worn out from being in the line everyday....served my time. But he hadn’t yet...so I stayed.”

“Dad. It’s okay. You don’t have to worry about this now.”

“Know it’s okay...was my decision...I chose to stay.”

After standing statue-still while Danny began to talk slower but with the same sadness in his tone, Grace is desperately trying to think of something to say. It doesn’t matter though. He only mumbles one more thing.

“Thought he’d choose to stay too.”

And then he’s back to a fitful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me weeks and weeks to write because I mostly ignored it that whole time. So I’m sorry if it’s kinda already too late, but whatever. By the way, my actual anger for the finale has basically faded. Like it was still fucking dumb (basically just the Catherine part) but I was never going to stay angry my whole life about that one episode. Plus people have made valid points how that episode wasn’t meant to be the series finale. However! I have frustrations that probably will last me a good few years, at least. The idea that the show could continue on without Steve McGarrett is fucking insane. Limited series are painful if they’re good shows, but the amount of respect I have for TV show producers that tell their story as best they can and then are done, is astronomical. I strongly resent the H50 people for not thinking of Steve as important enough to the story to end it when Alex wanted to leave and not taking the time to make a proper ending for all of them. Like set aside whatever wild shooting schedule that mf Mr. Caan had going on and put the ending of those two characters on equal footing. God, they made it seem like the world is the future of Steve, and Danny was just gonna get a Dear John letter later on. I feel batshit crazy thinking this deeply about some police procedural on fucking CBS, but I just can’t ever get over the desire to hold TV show writers that have a captive audience, an audience that wants to believe in the show for whatever reason, to a higher standard. Then almost always they write the most boring bullshit in the world. And then I feel a little more batshit crazy because the deep state of Hollywood or fucking whatever doesn’t give a s h i t about what we think and this is basically yelling into the sky. But I’m tired of being disappointed all the time.
> 
> Well.. I guess I'm still a bit angry.
> 
> On a happier/more ridiculous note: Guess what? I’ve watched maybe only 20 collective episodes of Hawaii Five-0 since paying more attention to the show starting about a month ago...I literally haven’t watched some of the things I reference in this story. I only started watching the show like two weeks before the finale and then I was like “oh :/” and wasn’t as motivated to watch such a long show. I’ve never in my life even thought to write about something I don’t know super well. But I’ve picked up a lot from tumblr, so here I am anyway. And if you were reading through this and some detail I added in is 100% contradicted by canon then I’m sorry. Please let me know! I will definitely fix it. This is so long now. Okay, I will try to write their reunion in a timely manner. Ciao


	3. I kēia ola

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Musical inspiration this time was a mix of "If I Go, I'm Going" by Gregory Alan Isakov and "Bed of Roses" by you know who. Also, I have reworked both the previous chapters, especially Chapter 1. Maybe I should take on a “if it’s out there, let it be” mentality, but I’ve put a lot more thought into this fic than I expected to in the beginning and I wanted to make the whole thing the best I could. No plot changes to either chapter, just took out some stuff I found kinda clunky and added some passive ideas I’ve since come up with. No need to reread if you don't want to.

Sunlight strides across the bedroom floor, a streak hitting his closed eyes.

A sunrise alarm lives much quieter.

Without any protest, he opens those eyes and lets them adjust, almost wishing he was having dreams that made it more difficult to let go of sleep. But as of the last few weeks, his unconscious has left him nothing to pull from during the conscious.

The dreams he wishes for are echoes of ones that have haunted his nights for years now. Dreams of two people, shadows against the dusk, on an island in the ocean.

In the beginning, he’d wake surprised and almost embarrassed that he’d unconsciously brought his partner into this largely unspoken side of his life. But then it went on for a decade, and eventually he just awoke with a deep ache in his chest.

Though, he doesn’t much need those dreams to feel that ache these days.

Let the river flow.

Before long, he’s lumbering out of bed. The strain in his chest as he bends to get up makes him squeeze his eyes shut for a moment, but it passes as much as it can and he continues on.

When he showers, he takes an especially long amount of time, no where near the preferred military length. When he gets dressed, he doesn’t look at his largely-unworn ties. When he pours his coffee, he uses creamer and doesn’t even consider butter. And when the egg carton catches his eye as he’s putting the creamer back in the fridge, he quickly closes the door and turns to make toast.

A truck goes past outside on the road and he doesn’t move to see what color it is, but a scowl flashes on his face unbidden.

Danny has been out of the hospital, after his eventual two-night stay, for a week now. The infection had been painful and uneventful all at the same time. He hadn’t even made it seem bad enough for the team to come visit him, even though they’d pressed for it.

The days pass slowly. He’s been doing his stretches with the bands Grace had brought him the other day, taking Eddie on walks, going to the Palace for a few hours during the weekdays to check in with Lou and do some paperwork, and hanging out with Grace and Charlie before Grace flew back to school yesterday.

Before they’d been dropped back at Rachel’s yesterday morning, Danny had brought both his kids into one big hug. Then he’d pulled back, looking between their sweet faces, and found his blessings in smiles that reached their eyes. This life of his made sense when they smiled like that.

At their mom’s house, they’d said goodbye and started to walk up to the door only for Grace to turn back with a claim of needing an extra goodbye before leaving for school until summer break. She’d jogged back to her dad and given him another hug, careful to not squeeze him too hard. Then she’d held him at arms length and said what she’d kept quiet since that first night in the hospital.

“Love you, Danno.... and um, when he comes back, maybe tell him why you chose to stay all those times.”

At that, Grace had turned quickly and caught up to her brother with a final wave over her shoulder. And Danny stood there.

Let the river flow.

He had driven home with the windows rolled down and taken a road that let him close enough to hear the waves against the shore. He’d gotten back, read half a book while only retaining one line at a time, cleaned most of the house with the same one song on repeat, and sat quietly in the living room with the eventual afternoon sun outside the window.

He’d then found himself at Steve’s. On his Sunday rest, Junior had silently gestured hello from the lanai when Danny went back to show him the leash he held with Eddie attached. Back through the house, a place he could walk with his eyes closed, Danny didn’t look anywhere besides the door he and Eddie then went out.

The dog and him walked as long as Eddie wanted; it certainly wasn’t Danny that was leading them. Eddie even seemed to pull against the leash less than he would in the past, as though he could tell Danny would feel another jarring spike of pain if he happened to be holding the leash in the wrong hand.

And when the sun began to level with the horizon, Eddie returned them to the beach house, where Danny found himself sitting in the car. Staring at the red pickup truck, left where it had been all those weeks ago.

Danny barely remembered the drive home. If anything, the most he could recall was the flashes of anger. The ones that had been telling the ache in his chest to fuck off since he’d gotten that first text from Steve. And every text since had only made it worse. He was mad he was angry, angry he was mad.

Steve had left. Just like that. Just like he had in the past, but this time the only mission he had was to not be here. To go off with the woman that had thrown him around for years. A casual, fun little text for Danny every once and a while.

A steely cool fell over him once he was suddenly in the driveway. He was resigned now. Couldn’t be forever, that’s no way to live. But he’d do it this way for tonight at least.

Eventually he was standing in his own kitchen, leaning against the countertop, eating a sandwich, letting darkness set without a thought. The last rays just hitting his face through the window, illuminating his eyes.

Blue eyes in the light.

As he walked to his bedroom, having decided that darkness was bedtime enough, it occurred to him that it might be odd that he left his daughter’s parting words on his ex-wife’s driveway. He’d just left them there. But they’d catch up at some point. Whether by sea or land, they’d find him. But not now.

He wakes the next morning with the sun in his eyes and dreamless as ever, gets ready in a most unaffected way, and drives into work eating his toast.

Walking into the task force’s office, Danny glances to Kono and Chin’s respective offices. They’re not there, of course. Like one of those coming-of-age movies where the kids fade out at the end when their future is told in a voice-over; all of the original Five-0 had moved on except Danny. He’s the only one here that remembers those early years. The family they made, the one that made this island his home.

There is new family now. But where is the old one?

Well, for starters, Steve is standing in the middle of the room with the team gathered around him.

Danny doesn’t falter a step.

At a certain point, he recognizes he has Steve’s attention, and all of a sudden he’s steady eyes and a casual smile.

“Hey, buddy! How was the trip?”

He’s in no rush, but Danny doesn’t wait for an answer. Instead he nods to the rest of the team and walks into his office, closing the door no harder than he would any other day.

Let the river flow.

* * *

There’s a park in Newark, New Jersey where five thousand cherry blossom trees bloom for two weeks every spring. From touch down at John F. Kennedy International Airport, it’s possible to get there, with no rush, in around two hours.

It takes Steve three hours because he didn’t know he’d end up at that park.

He lands in New York the afternoon after waking up one morning in a hotel room with a heavy heart. He had sat resolute in a chair facing a window overlooking the city he’d struggled to experience the day before, until he’d heard the signs of Catherine waking up.

He’d gotten up from the chair and gone to sit on the edge of the bed. It was a testament to Catherine, despite her lack of noticing the day before, that she’d immediately seen something was wrong in the face of the man she’d known for nearly twenty years.

The talk lasted about half an hour. It was incredibly awkward, a whirlwind romance to end on a quiet note, and Catherine didn’t simply accept this change of tune without argument.

It wasn’t an all-out heart to heart. Things were left unsaid. Things he’d always wanted to yell every time she’d left. But he was the one leaving this time and it didn’t feel worth bringing them up now. They are who they are.

Steve told her he was sorry, but he couldn’t do this any longer. He explained that it was time for him to go home, that he liked traveling with her, but he was still running from demons he’d never named. She was confused what had happened and insistent that they could deal with whatever it was.

But when Steve mentioned, more off-hand than anything, that he’d gotten that text about Danny, Catherine had deflated and sighed a heavy sigh.

With a perplexed look at her reaction, he’d continued and said that he’d known her for half his life, but he knew they weren’t how the rest of it should go.

At that, she’d sat in the chair Steve had gotten up from originally and pulled the same sadly pensive look she’d woken up to on his face.

It had been an animated thirty minutes and the sudden uncomfortable silence marked the moment Steve doubted himself. How could he trust anything his mind came up with? Maybe he was thinking himself in circles and this was the best place for him.

Catherine turned, a sad smile on her face, and Steve felt his decision settle in stone when he could see the relief in her shoulders. It wasn’t cruel, she wasn’t happy she was relieved, but he’d made the choice that Catherine had been subconsciously tamping down since they began this trip.

“You leaving today?”

“...yeah”

“Okay. I’m staying here for a bit. Got some ideas where I’m going next. Let me know when you get back to Hawaii.”

“Alright, yeah.”

The aftermath was even more awkward, if that’s possible, as they shuffled around one another to finally put to rest the trek of their relationship.

Catherine went down to get breakfast while Steve showered and changed. Upon her return, he packed while she showered. At some point they’d gotten on two trains heading different directions, but at least now they knew how to minimize the pain of leaving.

When Steve was finished getting ready, they both found anywhere besides each other to look. But eventually the anxiousness in his stomach became too much, and he moved to say this final goodbye.

He brought her into a hug. Not a long one, and it felt a little impersonal, but to leave without one seemed odd. When they pulled back, there was a hard look in her eyes.

She opened her mouth as if to speak, closed it, and then said it anyway.

“I guess I know how it feels now...being left like this.”

Steve leaned down and picked up his seabag. Once he had, he turned back to Catherine and looked her in the eye.

In a quiet, but assured tone he replied, “No, I don’t think you do.”

At the door he turned back for a moment.

“Bye, Cath.”

She nodded slowly and accepted what it was.

“Bye, sailor.”

Steve got on a flight heading stateside a couple hours later and lands at the most personally degrading airport in the country. He’s flown through here on a few leaves in the past and it almost makes him wish he’d flown into LaGuardia. The inane operational style of the airport grates at Steve’s heightened irritability from the drama of the day and the eight hour flight.

He was planning on a layover in New York anyway, so instead of booking the final leg of his return home yet, Steve gets a rental car from the airport and starts to drive.

There’s somewhere he needs to see before he gets back to Hawaii.

He uses a mixture of the map app on his phone, road signs, and general intuition to make his way to the county where his partner lived most of his life thus far.

Through Queens, Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan, Jersey City, and across four rivers, Steve drives to Essex County, New Jersey. A route that he’s sure would make Danny wince for some reason, but Steve just needs to keep moving.

Every slow driver, long red light, and confusing road sign makes Steve’s jaw clench tighter, a persistent tension headache building. Even the turn signal clicking is annoying him. The exhaustion he’d garnered from the departure that morning and sitting uncomfortably while flying over the Atlantic Ocean is itching at his eyes and all he’s eaten today is a croissant of some sort while waiting to board his flight and the minuscule in-flight lunch.

Everything seems too loud and too much.

In a fit of frustration and wanting something to drown out his aggravated thoughts, Steve turns on the radio to whatever station it was last on and puts his attention back to the road with a glare.

But then he’s driving along north and he sees a row of police cruisers in front of the Newark Police Department 1st Precinct, two detectives walking out in shirt and tie, and the tension in his shoulders eases some.

And just as he gets past the station, the opening chords of the great Jonathan Bongiovi’s “Bed of Roses” starts low from the radio. Steve moves to change the station, but hesitates long enough that he leaves it.

The world slows down a bit, narrows to this town.

He keeps driving, turning onto a new road when it feels appropriate, passing more than a few restaurants with names like Sal’s, Frankie’s, Manny’s and his jaw isn’t so tight anymore.

Parts of this city seem like rough places, but Steve can see how Danny would ride around these streets and know his way, always know where he was. As though Steve can see his partner all those years ago, when this was his place. He had a preferred gas station, there was a street he always drove on Saturday afternoons when he was just killing time, one of these stoplights was the one he always avoided because he thought it was too long, and he’d pull into one of the parking lots of these restaurants to meet up with his old buddies for lunch.

Steve eases past a street corner and sees his partner, with the sparkle in his eyes of a decade ago, slow his stride and turn his face to the afternoon sun. He looks so young and carefree, like those days in the beginning in between the stresses of the job and a custody fight. Danny turns and gives someone beyond Steve’s imagination his real smile, the one Steve hasn’t seen in awhile, the one that lights Danny up. Steve’s grip is loose on the steering wheel and a small smile plays on his face as the visage of his best friend passes back into time to the tune of the song.

He just keeps going and despite the heavy struggle awaiting him in Hawaii, for now, Steve feels lighter than he has in a long time.

There’s a town about 15 minutes northwest of here that Eric had talked about and where Steve assumes Danny must have spent a good amount of time. But before he can decide whether he wants to start on his way there, he comes across the beginning of a park.

As far as he can remember, Danny has never told Steve about the cherry blossom trees that happen to be laid out in all their glory in front him as he drives up to a park.

After some nifty street sign following, Steve finds himself in a parking lot within the park watching families and couples get out of their cars to spend their Saturday afternoon walking the paths amongst the trees. The final notes of the song drift from the speakers and Steve is turning off the ignition and out of the car and moving.

Strolling paved sidewalks, trees in vibrant pink and white hang over his head. It’s beautiful. More than he ever imagined for New Jersey.

Eventually he comes across an empty bench and sits to people-watch those casually going past, letting the light breaking through the branches warm him against a late March chill he’s not used to these days.

After a moment, he takes out his phone to take a picture for his record of where he’s been the last few weeks.

Picture taken, the nearly automatic response is to send it to Danny. But for whatever reason, it doesn’t feel right. He’s here because it’s where Danny is from, but it doesn’t feel like the time to suddenly tell him he’s back in the US and stopped off in Newark to visit.

Then he laughs to himself because he’s someone from Hawaii that’s vacationing in New Jersey. The exact thing long ago he’d told Danny doesn’t happen when he saw that postcard in the Camaro. He remembers that not too long ago Danny even suggested that he visit Jersey.

And Steve had laughed in his face and made fun of the idea. At the time it just felt like that back and forth they’d always done about the Williams’ home state.

But Danny had looked tired. Steve had sat there talking about how he was kind of done with the job, tired of it, yet his partner had been there for so much of the same. Then Danny offered where he’d grown up as a place he found comforting and that maybe it would do the same for Steve. And Steve had laughed it away.

The spot above his eyebrow where Doris pistol-whipped him suddenly hurts.

Taking a deep breath, Steve decides with the normal internal self-deprecation he can always spiral later and is unusually able to stop his sinking mood by thinking about what he can do right now to make himself get out of it.

First, he takes a long final moment to enjoy the trees and ambiance of this green track within the industrial grey of the city.

Next, Steve knows he needs to eat something soon or he won’t have any say in his mood. As much as he now wishes he really had gotten a list of restaurants from Danny and could eat somewhere that meant something, Steve wanders back to the car and just gets himself to a fast food place.

Sitting in the car in the parking lot of the restaurant, eating a hamburger that is horrifically unhealthy, Steve knows he should be on his way some time today. He had needed to gather himself as best he could before getting back to Oahu.

But now that he’s here, he wants the whole tour. He wants Danny here to point out his favorite gas station, the road he always drove, the stoplight he hated, the restaurant he went to all the time. There are a million worn-down cities just like this all across the mainland, but this one has the touch of his partner. And that’s enough.

Someday, maybe.

For now Steve pulls out his phone and books a flight to Hawaii, choosing the one with the ten hour layover in Los Angeles. Then he finds one of those hotels attached to the airport and gets a room for the night.

In the next day and a half he will drive back to the city, return the car and check into his hotel, let the weariness from traveling and strain pull him into a deep sleep much earlier than he expects, get on his flight the next morning, text Mary before he does, spend a good amount of time with his sister and niece that day, ignore the questioning looks Mary gives him after he explains why he’s there, get on a final flight to Oahu, land around 11pm, take a taxi back to the house, and find it empty.

That’s what stops him. The six hour flight from LA had been spent staring at the back of the seat in front of him. On the ride to the house, he hadn’t even noticed they’d reached it until the cab driver got his attention.

Now he’s really back. And it’s weird because he’s been away from the island for longer stretches than this before, but it’s different this time.

And there’s no Eddie, no Junior...no Danny.

There is, though, a handwritten note on the table in front of the couch.

“ _Hello, sir! I’m at Tani’s and Eddie is with me. I didn’t want to leave him here on his own overnight, I hope it’s okay._ ”

At the top it’s dated from two and half weeks ago, but it’s crossed out. Junior had been leaving out the same note each time he was gone for the night just in case Steve returned then. Sweet kid.

He should be telling people on the island that he’s here. That he’s back. But Steve can’t even begin to figure out how he’d say it.

So instead he makes his way upstairs to his bedroom. He opens the windows enough to hear the waves. He drops his bag near the foot of the bed. He strips down to his boxers, throwing the clothes in the hamper.

Waves crashing against the shore. Over and over. Over and over.

He sleeps through a dreamless night. But by the time he’s in the shower the next morning, the traces of something worse still unsettle his nerves.

In the truck, Steve drives directly to the Palace. He marches up to the doors, walks through the building to the Five-0 headquarters with no fuss, and walks in without a word.

Tani, Junior, Lou, Quinn, Lincoln, and Adam.

They look amongst themselves and seem to collectively decide on half surprised excitement, half unfiltered confusion.

They’d said themselves a heavy goodbye less than a month ago, but also aren’t going to complain that he’s back. He gives hugs and half answers to the few questions he doesn’t pretend to not hear.

Then Steve turns to them with a question, a nervous stall in his tone.

“So, uh, where’s Danny?”

Tani, now only hesitant and confused, questions back, “You haven’t talked to him yet? Because you leaving...well, um...you guys were partners for a long time.”

Steve’s stomach twists at the response and he nods slowly.

The eyes of the people in front of him start tracking something over his shoulder, so Steve turns and is met with the force of nature himself.

When Danny greets him like Steve has just been away for the weekend, they’re all left standing where he left them. Steve flinches when the office door closes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I did a long ass note at the end of the last chapter, and y’all were kind enough to respond to my long-winded bullshit, I thought I’d basically just put my stream of thought as I write this chapter:  
> \- Creating the backstory for how they’ve dealt with their sexualities has been mildly stressful for me. Because of this I have made it pretty vague, but like, fuck it up with input from your imagination if you’ve got a solid headcanon on it.  
> \- I’m simply not qualified to write smut, or anything even close to smut, so this is incredibly PG.  
> \- Hand to god, below the basic decisions of how the plot would go, the most difficult part of writing this fic has been trying to get the number of days I’ve been citing to work with what’s happening. Like I chose three weeks in the beginning of the first chapter, which isn’t a numerical problem despite being a literary problem that I’m ignoring, but with the time jumps between events I need to make sure the days add up correctly. Then on top of that I have to factor in days of the week, which is soul breaking, and the fact that Grace would have gotten home on a Friday and probably left on a Sunday and Danny wouldn’t have been going in to work on the weekend.  
> \- That thing about JFK being the worst airport in the country was just a little personal vendetta message from me. I hate that fucking airport; it’s run like someone looked at an efficient airport and said “fuck that”. I’ve only been there twice and I guess the biggest issues I experienced were only when you’re just arriving at the airport for departures, but I can’t believe that place is such a hub for international travel.  
> \- I’ve realized this before, but if any of you read my pre-chapter notes from Ch 2 I said I listen to music while writing. This creates an issue because the music sets such a mood sometimes that I write really flowery stuff and then when I read it back without music on I’m like “wtf was I on”.  
> \- I’m disregarding when the finale aired and pretending the in-verse date was earlier than the premiere date.  
> \- I’ve been sort of struggling with that self-doubt of whether or not we’re really just making romance out of a close friendship. My first and main point to that is that it literally doesn’t matter because this story goes beyond the TV show and I don’t care what the writer intention was right now. My second point is that I think it makes sense that I’d doubt it because, of course, it wasn’t canon in a way that like fuckin’ TVLine or something would care about and the show went on for ten gd seasons. If a show goes on for that long, I think you can kinda assume that there will be story lines that aren’t in good faith with respect to the characters. Essentially, they may be P. Lenkov’s characters, but unless he literally was on a Hawaiian police task force and has been just recounting how he and his buds dealt with issues, he and other writers wouldn’t have been able to characterize our main boys in a consistent way for that long. Shit ends up being OOC for them anyway, so it makes sense that I would be worried about the same thing. That’s how I’ve made myself feel better about it. But my b if they’re genuinely OOC.


	4. A mahope aku

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter of the story! The next one is the epilogue. Although this really isn't that long of a fic, it's longer than anything I've written before, so thank you for sticking with me.

To be a SEAL is to be a SEAL.

For someone else to understand how every moment of every day there is a part of him that is ready, ready for _something_ to happen, feels essentially impossible. There are parts of giving yourself over to being designed towards a distinctly violent way of life that can only be experienced, not described.

However, there is something that every recruitment officer and veteran spokesman will happily describe. Through all the phases of becoming a SEAL and all the specific skills learned, there is the overarching goal that any man wearing the trident pin has the nearly unique ability to consistently decide and act on the best thing to do in high-stress situations.

But standing in the middle of Five-0 headquarters, Steve is at a complete loss. He thought he might be hugged, maybe punched, but not _nothing_.

The shades of Danny’s office are drawn, so Steve walks to be in-line with the glass door to his office and stops before he reaches for the handle. Danny is sitting at his desk calmly going through paperwork. He pulls his gaze up once he realizes Steve is standing there and gives him an intense look, but one that he seems to be intentionally blocking the silent conversations they can often have.

Steve’s eyebrows slant up and together to which Danny’s look only hardens.

_Fine._

Steve tears his eyes away from his partner and goes back to the team. They don’t appear particularly comfortable and Lou looks like he might try to pat Steve on the shoulder in the next few moments, so Steve walks with purpose to his corner of exile and sits at the desk in an office that Lincoln clearly hasn’t worked up the courage to move into.

Everyone left in the frigid air between the two continents shake themselves from the turn of events and slowly go to continue working on the case they’d been called in for earlier this morning. They don’t have everything meshing, but the new normal had been set and the team has learned how to work with it. So that’s what they do.

People go in and out of the office throughout the day. Off to chase a lead, interview someone that could be helpful.

Steve and Danny never leave their offices. The team consults with Danny about logistics of the case and Junior stops in just once to ask Steve about how it’ll be now that he’s back, tells him he dropped Eddie off at the house.

Around one or two, Tani brings them each lunch, the orders they always get. She almost wants to roll her eyes, but knows this could be more than one of their little fights.

Danny has normal administrative tasks to do all day. But Steve is sitting in an empty office with a computer and his phone, and it doesn’t seem like the time to insert himself in whatever case they’re all working. So he takes the task upon himself to restart his life here in Hawaii. He texts Catherine like he said he would, too.

By 4pm, most of the team is ready to leave, if not already gone, as the active case is relatively low-stakes and they’ve done their work for the day. So have Danny and Steve. And now they are just waiting.

Lincoln is the last one out the door and he gives a concerned look to each of the two occupied offices, like there is anything he could do now.

The light turns off in Danny’s office at 4:30 pm. Any worry Steve had about his own trespasses has dissolved over the long hours of the day into something he can easily push aside for the moment. Now he’s just angry. His partner is 20 steps away and not talking to him.

When Danny walks out of his office, he sees Steve through the window walls already standing to do the same.

A whole day of mindless work and now they’re going to have it out.

By the time they both stride across the space between and plant themselves on either side of the surface table, Danny could’ve fought and won a war.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing back here?!”

“Oh, what happened to trying to convince me that Hawaii is where I should stay? Hmm?”

“Let me guess: you’re so cheap you had Catherine paying for everything and you two ran out of money earlier than expected!”

“Man, really fucking funny, buddy. Love the creativity! Go ahead, call me an animal or stupid. Let’s make this whole thing as predictable as possible!”

“Oh look! He’s world-traveled and so in-touch with himself now! Thank-fucking-God, I was afraid we might just have to turn to caveman grunts!”

“Ha! Yeah, because you’ve got it figured out, right?! Not like you’re screaming in my face for no fucking reason. If I bring up pineapple on pizza, is it appropriate for me to call in HPD for backup in the same breath?!”

Danny’s sneer in response makes Steve’s mouth snap shut.

“Real comforting to me to now know for sure couple’s therapy wouldn’t have worked for me and Rachel. Shit just breaks anyway.”

“What do you want from me? I came back, I said I would, and here I am. What the fuck is your problem?”

“Do you know that Grace left yesterday? She won’t be back for another two months. You missed her.”

Ignoring the last part, a point that could potentially open Steve back up to his own awareness of how he screwed up, he replies, “Yeah, I assumed she’d be going back to school sometime around now.”

“What? How did you know she was back?”

“She texted me a few days ago wanting to know where she could find the workout bands for you...because of the infection you never fucking told me about.”

The surprise evident in Danny’s face only makes Steve angrier.

“Is that what we’re doing now? So all those times you were mad at me for ending up in the hospital for doing my job? Was the etiquette that I shouldn’t have even told you I was there?!”

“It’s not the same,” Danny puts out, anger still lacing everything he says.

“Right! Hey, new one! How about moving out of the fucking house without a word?! When did that happen? Were you really efficient about it and stopped on the way to the hospital to pickup all your stuff?!”

“Well what did you expect, huh? Was I supposed to have a sweet little domestic situation with Junior and your dog until you decided to grace us with your presence?”

“You still could’ve told me!”

“But God! What if I interrupted your fun getaway? You know, the one where you find ‘peace’ by fucking Catherine in a different country every night! Where is she, by the way? Getting in a couple CIA missions before dinner?”

If Steve had been worried earlier about Danny punching him, then it’s nothing compared to the desire now to take a swing himself. He springs from where he’s been stuck in his place, all while Danny stands his ground, turning to face Steve as he rounds the table. Danny almost looks like he’ll just take the hit if it’s coming and that pisses Steve off even more. So instead he grabs Danny by the collar of his shirt and yanks him in so he’s towering above him.

Steve doesn’t even know why he doesn’t let Danny stew in it, but he spits out, “She’s gone, you piece of shit. I left her two days ago.”

“What the fuck? Why?” Danny gives back, shooting a glare up at Steve.

“Guess it doesn’t matter now.”

“Oh good, should I ask you something else so you can tell me ‘it’s classified’, too?”

“Just stop it, my God.”

“Why the hell are you back, Steve?!”

In this moment, Steve realizes they’ve been pressed together for a little too long and shoves Danny back by the hold on his collar before they have a whole new problem Steve is unwilling to deal with.

“I got a text, Danny! That’s it! I got a text from your daughter and now I’m back. Fucking get over it.”

Steve then turns on a trained heal and blazes a path out of the building. At 4:35 pm Danny is left standing there ready to sit on the floor or punch the wall. But he does neither and waits long enough that he can be sure Steve has already driven away before walking out himself.

Steve sits on the couch with a content Eddie for most of the early night. It’s actually longer than Steve ever expected himself to sit still, but he’s got no one looking for him, nothing to do.

Junior is understandably at Tani’s. The rest of the team can guess right now is not the best time for a casual catch-up. His parents are dead. His sister lives across the ocean. And Danny...well Danny isn’t here.

It’s like the whole world is just this house. An island itself. He could step out into the water and swim and swim and never find anyone else.

How did this all happen? He was free and clear a week ago. He’d ripped off the bandaid. He could’ve been an island of one, unburdened by it all, somewhere he couldn’t understand what anyone was saying. But instead he’d dragged himself back to this place.

His father had literally been murdered in the other room. Every nightmare he’s ever lived has been replayed in detail as he slept in the bed upstairs.

Maybe Catherine was a mistake, but it feels like coming back here was too.

He wants to have a weekend afternoon with everyone here again, he wants to hug Gracie and Charlie again, he wants to sit out in the chairs watching the sunset again, and he wants Danny to walk through the front door like he owns the place again.

But for all the training, all the time spent making him a warrior, they never told him how to stop being scared all the time.

Steve had gotten lucky, in a twisted way, he’d found a war to fight while living in paradise. He’d gotten to be a sailor for another decade and kept the adrenaline, a reason to choose fight over flight, going the whole time. But then he’d realized he couldn’t keep up the fight anymore. So he had to choose flight.

He used to just be John’s son. That tape he’s played, the one where his dad hoped his kid wouldn’t be a cop, it used to be ironic. Now it feels prophetic.

The weary groan Steve lets out has Eddie perking up with a concerned whine. Steve scratches at his boy’s head and murmurs assurances that he’s okay.

But then, feeling loose from reason, Steve gets up to go to the toolbox in the garage. He opens it like he has a hundred times now and pulls out the cassette tape. He carelessly opens the cassette cover and immediately moves to put it into the player, but a piece of paper flutters from the case to the ground. Steve leans down and picks it up.

_“Steven, for the love of glorious New Jersey, please do not listen to this again. Your dad was your dad, but he wasn’t omnipotent. Whatever’s got you pulling this out is probably something I’ve already figured out, so just come over for a beer and it’ll be fine. Dumbass.”_

Written in the hand that he will always know, and it must have been put in the case while Steve had been gone. Danny hadn’t been at his own place until then.

Suddenly his island feels like it has one bridge and it runs all the way to Danny’s front door, so after a moment of hesitation Steve decides to follow it.

He goes to get in the truck and realizes it must be later than he thought because darkness has fallen and settled. Nevertheless he starts the Silverado and starts off on his bridge.

He gets to that front door and opens it. The moment he does so though, it’s like his brain decides now is the time to remind him that earlier that day he had been in a screaming match with the owner of the house he is entering without warning. Any other night this wouldn’t have warranted a second thought, but it did now.

It’s either his luck or his misfortune because Steve doesn’t have a chance to deliberate when there’s movement from the couch and the pile of blankets shifts. Danny face comes into view over the back of the couch as he much too casually looks to see who’s just come into his house in the middle of the night.

Danny rolls his eyes as soon as he sees it’s Steve and flops back down. For his part, Steve keeps his face neutral as he finally closes the front door and moves to sit somewhere.

When he comes around the couch, he finds himself slowly sliding down to the floor and putting himself with his back to the ottoman, facing the couch.

Danny passively watches this process as Steve brings himself into his eyeline, and takes in his partner while he is looking down to sit. But before Steve can turn his head up and look Danny in the eye, Danny returns to his back and looks up at the ceiling.

“Bed is too comfortable right now,” Danny offers up as explanation for his current sleep situation.

He sees Steve’s acknowledgement nod in his peripheral. But then all is silent. There is no moon, but the streetlight outside the house casts warm light through the window and across Steve as Danny ignores the intent look he’s receiving from him.

Danny had spent the night much like he had the afternoon before, household chores completed by rote. He would finish vacuuming a room and not even remember deciding to do so. He’d wiped down the kitchen twice before realizing he’d done it the first time. If they keep this up, Danny won’t ever have any busywork chores to give Charlie when he comes over.

He’d oscillated the whole evening between mentally rehashing the fight they’d had and feeling bone-deep worry that he’ll never be able to get through to Steve. That there will always be this hum of frustration and misunderstanding in the air between them because Steve doesn’t know how to deal with the hurt anymore.

But he was back. And Danny so desperately wishes that he could have thrown in a hug with his opening lines this morning and that really would have been it. Though, they both know, openly or not, that the things they’ve never talked about wouldn’t have let that pass.

“I still can’t read your mind, you know.”

The gruff interruption makes Danny turn to look at its source with exaggerated contempt.

“Not sure you’d want to right now.”

Another acknowledgment nod, but this time Danny is still looking at him.

In the quiet of the night, where no one else ever sees them, the two men, each with tiredly-hooded eyes, just look at each other.

Steve glances over Danny’s mostly covered form and thinks of the scar tissue on his chest. How he noticed the winces Danny had been trying to hide as he moved during the day. Guilt tinges the warm light on his face.

He moves his eyes back up to Danny’s and finds a soft look there that he doesn’t know what to do with. So much so that the frustration clouds the tired calm in his chest and on his face.

Danny of course sees the change in mood and his features likewise shutter, a deep frown taking over his face as he turns away with a huff.

Anything louder than a whisper would sound like thunder right now, but Steve almost wants them to go back to yelling in each other’s faces. _This_ is by far worse. Something Steve can’t even name. And that’s probably more upsetting than the existence of it.

Heavy steps take him to the door once he gets up, but Steve stops and stares at the wall next to the door where there’s a new picture up. It’s Danny and his kids. Over winter break. Charlie sits in Danny’s lap, Grace has an arm hooked around her dad’s shoulders, and they’re all smiling like they do. Steve had taken the picture. Still has it on his phone.

“Danny...before I left I said my dad brought me back here and he was the reason I stayed...”

Looking over his shoulder to see if he’s listening, Steve finds Danny looking directly at him, seeing the picture he’s stopped at.

“Well I just...I didn’t stay for him, okay.”

“What does that matter now?”

“What?”

Danny doesn’t deign to reply, only raises an eyebrow in challenge. Steve knows what he’s asking.

“I don’t know.”

Danny sighs a “yeah” and finally turns back over, tension radiating in his shoulders.

Steve silently leaves.

The ride home Steve feels off. Like he had the day after getting Grace’s text. And he really doesn’t know what to do about it.

In Danny’s eyes he’d found his own turmoil. The implications of what they were asking each other seem too big, too much. They’d been friends for 10 years.

There were those times when he was younger, when he couldn’t push the desires, the ones he’d always fought, to the bottom of his seabag. Those times, though, he eventually accepted as just him, but a him that he kept private. It wasn’t too hard.

Then Danny Williams busted into his life and it had gotten much, much more difficult. And stayed that way.

Sitting parked at the beach house, Steve finally gets out to make his way into the house and up to bed. Resigned to eternal exhaustion.

When he wakes in the morning, there are ghosts of dreams he had in the night. Those images mirrored in the unconscious of his partner.

The next days pass in uncomfortable and agitated avoidance. They both go into work and they both don’t talk to one another. Steve gets read in on the case, Danny insists he’s good to go out in the field, so they’re out working the murder, but not together.

Danny barely looks at Steve. Steve glares at Danny. If questioned by a higher power in those moments, it’s almost guaranteed neither one of them would really be able to articulate what it is they’re fighting about. But they carry on.

Tani and Junior maintain a certain youthful chipper-ness. Adam, Lincoln, and Quinn feign a practiced aloof air. And Lou just looks worn-down; he’s been doing this job for a long time. All eight people working in a space that started with four.

Either way, the strain between the two goes on for most of the week. Lifeless work during the day. But at night, at night they dream like they did in the old days, before it all got so complicated. And in the morning it makes them angrier.

Then on Friday, they’ve closed in on the main suspect for the murder, just another scumbag that got greedy. Unavoidably, Steve and Danny are both there as backup. But the guy runs, like they always do. Danny knows he can’t keep up, Steve suspects the same of himself. So it’s just Tani and Junior that take off, one on the guy’s tail, the other rounding the block to cut him off.

Danny and Steve stay behind, search and secure the guy’s house and stew in the realization that they should not be here if they can’t do the job fully. But then, as they happen to be in a room alone for the first time since that night in Danny’s living room, Danny misreads the direction Steve is about to go to get around him and hits his shoulder into Steve.

It isn’t a hard hit, it isn’t an intentional hit, but Steve irrationally feels the indignation of being pushed course through him. In response, he lightly, but unplayfully, shoves Danny sideways.

“Watch where you’re going, _Danno,”_ Steve mockingly throws out as Danny stumbles a little from the shove.

And they’re above nothing right now, so Danny spins back and gives Steve a real push.

“Fuck off.”

It could’ve been funny if they weren’t fighting for their livelihoods. Suddenly they’re in each other’s face and quickly progressing towards something akin to wrestling, but an ungraceful form of it.

They don’t throw punches, they don’t move to really hurt, but when all other ways run out, apparently they revert to low-quality recess disagreement management.

The only thing that eventually pulls them back is the distant, but approaching whines of the runner Tani and Junior must be frog-marching back to the house.

Heavy breaths, Danny and Steve are sitting on the floor with angry, almost teary, eyes. Steve can see Danny is about to say something and doesn’t want give him another chance at something hurtful. But before he can get up, Danny has Steve’s gaze pulled back with a hand on the back of Steve’s neck.

“ _Every_ time you left, all I ever hoped was that you’d come back. As a hero or not, all you needed to do was come home....but I don’t know how to deal with _this_ , you not being able to tell me anything.”

Steve rocks back a bit, Danny still looking him hard in the eye.

But having said his piece, Danny yanks away and quickly stands to walk out the front door and cool off before the kids finally return.

Steve stands up, a little wobbly on his legs, and straightens out his clothes while looking for something to do.

When they do return, Tani and Danny drive the suspect back to the Palace for questioning, Junior and Steve finish looking through the house for evidence.

Danny and Steve somehow, but also by very specific design, don’t see each other for the rest of the day.

It’s only when Danny is finally at home, destined for a weekend of thinking and thinking about this horrible circle they’d set themselves into, that his phone starts ringing in his pocket.

He stares at the “Mary McGarrett” on the screen for a second, but when he realizes the picture that comes up with it is one he’d jokingly set of Steve holding little Joanie, Danny hits any button to get rid of the picture.

He must have hit accept because a voice is coming from the phone where he still holds it so he brings it up to his ear.

“Hi, Mary.”

“Hey, Danny.”

“What can I do for ya?”

“Oh not a good day, huh?”

“It’s nothing, what’s up?”

“Well, as you know, my brother has suddenly returned from his time abroad and since he was acting super weird when he visited me, and his texts the last few days have not been informative, I thought I’d check in with you.”

Ignoring the part that Steve had apparently stopped in LA, Danny really convincingly replies, “Oh, uh, he’s fine, Mary.”

“Really? Because there was definitely something off when he was here.”

“I don’t know what to tell ya. He’s back at work, we just closed another case today... maybe he was just being Steve.”

“Ok, alright, I just wanted to see if you noticed anything. Hey, what did you think about him finally going to New Jersey? He didn’t seem to want to talk about it, but I was cracking up thinking about how much business the tie stores must get.”

It takes Danny a moment to realize what he’s hearing. But when he does he replies in what he hopes is something like a playful tone.

“Oh yeah, he did tell me that. And we don’t have to buy them, they just grow in our backyards.”

As Mary laughs in response, she starts talking about this pretty picture Steve had showed her of some trees in a park, cherry blossom trees. Danny’s mind trails off. He knows he asks about Joan, gets an answer and then finishes the call promising to keep an eye on Steve.

Danny can’t believe Steve visited New Jersey. All these years of talking about his old home, where his parents still live, and Danny had given up that Steve would ever take the time to go there. There’s a flash of anger that Steve also hadn’t told Danny about these stops, but Danny knows it’s ridiculous.

He spends the rest of the evening trying to figure out why Steve would finally go to Newark. What it meant that he’d left his worldly excursion to sit in Branch Brook Park for an hour. He makes it all the way up to the time he’s changed and ready for bed wondering over it.

Then the pointed words his daughter had given him on his ex-wife’s driveway finally catch up and they settle into the present.

Why did he choose to stay? Because this is where Steve always came back to. Sometimes he’d even had to lead him back, but still he came.

_I got a text from your daughter and I came back._

_He wasn’t the reason I stayed._

Laying in bed, Danny lets out a frustrated groan and punches the pillow next to his head.

When he’s about to repeat the motion, his phone starts ringing again. And he picks it up with an irritated glance at the caller ID.

“Look, Rachel, I’m sorry but I’m not really in the mood for anything right now so if you could jus-“

“It’s me!”

A smile takes over Danny’s face despite himself.

“Hey, Charlie! Sorry, kiddo, I thought it was your mom. What’s up? Why you up so late?”

“It’s just my bedtime, Danno. I was calling to say goodnight.”

Danny looks over at his bedside table clock and rolls his eyes when he realizes he’s now naturally going to bed at the same time as an eight year old child.

“Oh right, sorry, I’m glad you called. You have a good day?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good, that’s good. Well thank you for calling. I’m always happy to talk to you.”

“I know, dad. Hey, can I say goodnight to Uncle Steve, too? Mom said he’s back now!”

At that Danny slowly sits up.

“Oh, uh, well he’s not here, kiddo. I’m sorry.”

There’s a pause on the other side of the line and then Charlie’s disappointed sigh fills the line.

“Oh, okay. He’s always there, Danno. Where is he tonight?”

It takes a moment for Danny to respond.

“I don’t know, honey....I’ll find him, though. Tell him you said goodnight.”

“Okay! Thanks! Goodnight, I’ll talk to you later!”

“Yeah, you will. Danno loves you.”

Charlie adds in a parting “love you” and then hangs up the phone.

Danny is left staring at the black screen of his phone for much longer than he realizes.

Then he gets up to go find his partner, wherever he might be.

Danny pulls up to the beach house. He walks the easy path to the front door. As he does, he hears the waves against the shore. High tide has come in, the line in the sand washed away without effort.

Danny goes into the house, stops to take off his shoes at the door, and works his way upstairs to the room he knows. The bedroom door is cracked open so he just pushes it wider and steps through. Steve, similar to Danny’s reaction to the intrusion the other night, only casually looks to the door to see Danny walk in, as he lays on the far side of the bed. Steve holds a wary look, like he’s afraid tonight will end with another reason for sleep to not come easy.

Instead, Danny walks over to the empty side of the bed and stands there looking over Steve. After a moment he sits on the edge of the bed with his back to him.

Danny stares at his hands, the floor, anything. But eventually he gets himself to do as he said he would.

“Charlie says goodnight,” Danny states over his shoulder in Steve’s direction.

He can feel Steve’s watchful eyes on his back as he sits there. Then he lets the tension out in a heavy sigh and a second later leans down and rolls over to be lying on his side facing the other man, a gap between them.

“Bed was big enough for two before. Maybe we make that a standing agreement.”

Steve gives a nearly imperceptible nod in response, but his gaze has dropped from Danny’s eyes, his eyebrows drawn.

Basically holding his breath, Danny lies there, more nervous than he has been in a long time.

Steve, for his part, is just as worried. He’s not completely sure of any one thing to do.

But that river will flow.

So Steve slowly reaches across the divide, all the while only keeping his eyes on his own hand. When he takes Danny’s hand, the one lying on the bed closest to him, he just stares at them.

After a time, though, he finally drags his gaze up. And all he sees are blue eyes in the dark, in the light. In love.

And there they stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Big fear of mine is writing about military stuff cause I don’t know jack shit and it can sound really off when someone non-military tries to talk about it, but the take I did on the SEAL shit is stuff I’ve kinda just picked up over time and perspective stuff from people I know that have been in the military. So hopefully I wasn’t bullshitting too badly. But I did use it in a cliche-ass way. Mea culpa  
> \- There hasn’t been a huge reason for it yet, but these mf's finally get to cuss each other out. Part of the TV show distancing from reality that gets me is when a career dude in the Navy and a cop from Newark don’t say “fuck” as much as the word “the” in literally every sentence they say to each other.  
> \- My respect for any fic writers that create these 30k, 40k, 50k+ word fics has increased an insane amount since writing this. This is literally only 12k and I feel like it’s taken me fucking forever to finish it.  
> \- You motherfuckas never mentioned that Steve said Danny was on spring break with his kids in 10.20 as an absence excuse! Gosh, you write a 10k fic about a show you’ve seen like 8% of and think you can use specific events without being tripped up by canon. Well guess what! College spring breaks seem to never line up with primary school ones, so Steve misspoke and he just meant Charlie’s spring break.  
> \- How old is Charlie??


	5. Epilogue

For as long as we’ve fought wars there have been warriors. However they ended up there, they’re told to fight, fight hard, and protect those they left behind. We build memorials to those men and women, and pray we’ll never need to again. And then we do.

During the early summer of 2020, Steve McGarrett holds a small little party at his house. And everyone is there.

They’re there to celebrate, to remember, to be together.

Charlie and Grace come over earlier in the morning to help set up extra chairs and things for the food and drinks.

Kamekona happily supplies said food, Flippa there to help, but they are of course well-paid in turn, although they still give the 10% discount.

Junior and Tani are the first to arrive and as Junior steps through the front door, Eddie just about loses his mind. The dog, acting like Junior isn’t over here all the time anyway since recently moving in with Tani, makes everyone laugh as Junior scratches under his collar.

The rest of the team, Adam, Quinn, and Lincoln, roll in soon after; Noelani in tow. The group glad to be with their people.

Lou, with his family, walks through the house to the lanai. Stopping there to stretch, he starts griping about how he really needs this break from all the hard work lately. Will is already gone to talk to Grace, but everyone else in the vicinity rolls their eyes. He’d retired a week after Danny and Steve had put in their own papers to the Governor two months ago.

With everyone here that had been here the weekend before and would probably be here the weekend after, they all relax before the real party gets started.

And it starts soon when Chin and Abby walk out into the backyard. Some just sit back and happily watch a reunion, but others trip over each other to pull Chin Ho Kelly, a grin splitting his face, into a hug.

With the timing of cousins, Kono is only noticed by those that had been animatedly asking Chin a thousand questions when she dramatically clears her throat. Then the scramble starts all over again.

The lanai, grass, and sand soon start to fill with more and more people. Some that drove a few short minutes, and others that flew several long hours.

Duke arrives with his wife and seemingly every HPD officer that’s ever had a kind word to say about the task force.

Jerry walks out already going on about his book, like he’d started in the house where no one could hear him anyway. But they all put up a cheer when they see him.

Deep in a discussion that everyone initially assumes is genuinely in a different language, Max and family come out into the back and sit down wherever they find space to finish the talk before even acknowledging all those around them.

Steve sweeps Joanie into a hug the moment she and Mary finally arrive, grinning at his returned sister.

And a dozen others make their way to the house on the beach.

At each person that steps out from the house, Steve watches as Grace and Charlie light up in recognition of those that have been around them most of their lives. And it makes him proud that these kids approve of all the people they’d brought into this little world of theirs.

Setting down a restless Joan, Steve makes his way over to Danny’s kids and pulls them both into one big hug, his chest so abuzz with the lightness of living that he can’t stop smiling at their laughter as they hug him back.

They’re making new memories here.

As the afternoon turns to evening, the party continues on. Music floats through the air, people laugh until they’ve forgotten the joke, and some who have never met before today sling an arm around one another and share in the moment.

In a natural gathering, the original four find themselves around one table. They look around where they sit and see the ghosts of half a century dancing with the people they’d know for the rest of their lives. The ghosts of those they’d buried now accept the heartache from them around the table with comforting nods and turn back to the world, forever memories of grief and of happiness.

They all share a sad look that fades to a sad smile; they‘d learned the way of mourning together.

And then a moment and that too fades to just a smile, light laughter chasing it. But half the time Steve is smiling is spent looking only at Danny. Chin and Kono both knowingly laugh while Danny bashfully pushes Steve. Steve never looks away.

The two partners don’t act any different than they ever have. They bicker and laugh. They hug and share looks never meant for anyone else. Sure, something changed, but not even everyone here knows it, and they don’t need to.

After everyone has eaten, and the sun warmed them all day, they all sit or stand, some around the fire, some wherever they can, and watch the sky light up from the sun dropping down below the ocean. The music is soft, murmurs of continued conversations quiet.

And the two of them, they sit in their chairs on the beach. Old men watching the sunset together, for the first time of forever.

Lest we forget.

A phrase used to remember those that have sacrificed for their country, for their island, that gave what they could and nothing more. But maybe it can also be for those that had to keep on living afterwards, _got_ to keep on living, sharing the burden of Atlas.

Lest we forget that one weekend afternoon, the ohana all met back together where their time began and shared in the joy of life in paradise, then here is the record of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kinda just wrote this as what I wished the finale actually looked like. I know it’s cliche and flowery as hell, but I wanted to get to say goodbye to everyone and know they’ll all be okay, so I guess that's what this came to be. Also, throughout writing it, I would have to take moments to remind myself it's okay they're meeting in big groups and stuff... oh the times. Hey, thanks again for reading this! I hope this maybe settled some sadness we all had after the show ended. If not, I hope you at least enjoyed it. Aloha, I suppose


End file.
